T-Rex Engineering

T Rex is a pedal manufacturing company that really builds great sounding pedals for the professional and amateur guitarist. This is a pedal that is a tube power reverb pedal that gives you a great sounding tube reverb sound. There is quite a difference between a digital to analog, and spring reverb units compared to the tube driven reverb units. This is a pedal that gets you a nice sounding tube tone that really fills the air with a crate sounding reverb. Overall this is a great sounding pedal and it has a load of features and options to get you pretty much any sound that you are looking for.

UTILIZATION

T-Rex Engineering Room-Mate Tube Reverb Guitar Pedal Features:

Four tube-based reverb modes: Spring, Hall, Room, and LFO
Mix, Level, Decay, Mode, Hicut, and Gain controls
Stereo operation
Includes power supply


SOUND QUALITY

You have four control knobs of operation to choose from. Your first control knob is the mix which allows you to dial in the effected signal along with the dry signal. This gives you the overall effect within your main guitar tone. Next you have the decay which is how wide and lasting the reverb tone continues to drop off from the signal. Can you have a level control which gives you the overall volume level of this pedal. Next you have a mode control that gives you four types of possible sounds including spring,, Hall, and then a unique sound called LFO setting. Again this is a great sounding pedal and will get you the right amount of reverb for any song or recording that you need.

OVERALL OPINION

You can find these pedals for right around $370. That is a load of money for a single unit and especially a reverb pedal. I think a reverb pedal in my opinion shouldn't be more than $200. However this is he tube driven reverb so it's going to give you that organic tube sound that you can only find any tube driven reverb unit. Many times in order to get a tube driven reverb sound you have to buy the reverb tube amplifier. This is the pedal that you would own if you had the money to throw down on a simple reverb pedal. It has a great tone and clarity for most style of reveber in most applications.

Primarily a singer, I've been playing guitar for about 10 years, been in a band (drummer!), and have continued to record and play with other musicians on a non-professional basis. My styles range from folk to hard rock, with heavy power-pop leanings -- Big Star, not Green Day.

I bought this effects pedal at Truetone Music in Santa Monica, CA for $250.

For years I had hunted for a distortion/metal pedal that could deliver the kind of organic, dynamic, versatile tone that I wanted. I've used the Marshall JH-1 Jackhammer for years, but it sounded too metallic and wasn't what I was looking for. The Electro-Harmonix Metal Muff was a tremendous disappointment, sounding artificial and harsh rather than rich and responsive. I finally happened upon the Bloody Mary and it's precisely what I wanted. It delivers a complex drive tone, and it is extremely responsive to the guitar. I've never had a pedal that was this responsive to the guitar's volume and tone controls, my own playing dynamics, and the pickup selection. Turn down the guitar's volume and suddenly you have a juiced-up clean tone; hit the strings harder and you get extra crunch. The EQ controls on the pedal are very easy to control. This is also the only distortion-type pedal I've found that can make my Telecaster sound good at high gain settings.

At $279 street price, it's definitely not an inexpensive piece of gear. I think it's worth it, since it can liven your clean tone, provide subtle distortion, or go to full-on crunch. It does the job of three of the pedals in my collection. The battery compartment is a bit hard to get at, requiring a flat-head screwdriver. The input and output jacks are in a strange place, side by side at the top of the pedal, so access is not as good as with most pedals.

Great. Solid metal chassis, sturdy knobs. The on/off button is a tad light, but responsive.

The best overdrive/distortion/metal pedal I've ever owned, and in fact, just about my favourite effect pedal, period. Despite its heavy-metal name, the Bloody Mary is a versatile pedal with loads of personality, great adaptability, superb response, and great sound. It's the kind of pedal you can leave on for an entire set.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com